Down and Across
by SineTimore
Summary: It's Sunday morning. Beckett is focused on the task at hand. Castle definitely isn't. *one shot*


**Disclaimer: **Borrowed with admiration, appreciation, love, and thanks.

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_**Down and Across**_

Castle studied her with covert amusement, her furrowed brow a result of the complex but deliberate arrangement of tiny boxes on the page in front of her, her bare morning lips pursed in abject frustration. He shifted his position just slightly and relaxed further into the down pillows at his back, her body compensating for his movement accordingly. Her hair hung loose to his great delight, its earlier mechanism of restraint banished to her wrist, and it faintly tickled the paper below as her breath shifted it back and forth. He held his copy of the puzzle assertively in hand; a cover, of course, as his focus was directed definitively elsewhere – at her, as always.

At rest on her elbows in the vee of his bare legs, her pillow relegated to makeshift desktop duty and his midsection its support, she attacked each clue in Sunday's most challenging crossword puzzle with fixated attention. He wasn't certain whether or not she was conscious of it, but she always bit at her lip when she concentrated that deeply, this morning no exception, and it never ceased to drive his insides into a frenzy. This truly wasn't a fair fight, he thought, as the corners of his mouth traveled northward in response. Their bet was in place and he was guaranteed to lose. How in the hell was he supposed to function with the level of intelligence and command required of him? It simply wasn't scientifically possible. Not when she did that. And how she did that. And where she did that.

"You know that I can feel you, right?" she asked into the silence, her eyes never leaving the page. He felt the blush of embarrassment rise from his toes and travel hastily to his face. "You have to stop staring at me, Castle. I can't concentrate."

Oh, that wasn't at all what he had expected. And, wait, this was her _not_ concentrating?

His smile faded instantly and he cleared his throat to buy him a few more seconds of time. "But you're doing that thing and…um, never mind, I'll stop," he started and then backpedaled. Maybe she hadn't heard. He really didn't want to be the one to bring the mannerism into her zone of awareness because, quite frankly and quite selfishly, he never wanted her to stop doing it. Ever.

She chewed absentmindedly at the end of her pen – yes, she did the Sunday _New York Times_ crossword in pen, the mark of a true hero, he noted – and muttered something profane about the puzzle's author before finally looking up at him. "And what _thing_ would that be exactly?" she inquired in irritated tone.

He needed his writer brain desperately.

But it failed him.

"Um, just, ya know, being you." _Honestly_? He fought mightily against his own eye-roll as he clearly observed hers. She made no similar attempt to suppress it.

"Hey, wait a second!" she exclaimed roughly as she looked him over. "Castle, you don't…do you even have a pen?" she asked, already aware of the obvious answer. "Jesus, you know, it's really gonna take all the fun out of beating you at this thing if you don't even try," she huffed.

His body sprang upright and he seized the pen from her hand before tossing it aimlessly across the room. The pillow beneath her forearms was next to go, taking with it the source of her morning's aggravation. With the one boundary between them gone, he grabbed her underneath each arm and flipped her onto her back on her vacated side of the bed. She exhaled audibly in surprise and confusion. And then she grinned. It was modest and unintended but he noticed it.

"What the hell was that about?" she barked, overcompensating with feigned anger to diminish any potential divulgence of her complete and total _lack_ of discomfort at the sudden turn of events. He hadn't earned that morsel of information yet.

He watched her eyes watch him, waiting for an answer. His hand traveled slowly over the clavicle left exposed by her off-shoulder tee and up her neck, his finger coming to soft rest against her lips. He traced it across and then back down her chin, her neck, and across her shoulder, in pattern of the puzzle he'd just energetically discarded.

"So," he began before a notable pause, "you think that I'm not trying?" He pressed his lower body against hers. "I will have you know, Ms. Beckett, that I'm trying harder than you can possibly fathom. Do you have any idea what it's like? Any idea at all what it feels like to have you in this bed like this, to be this close to you as your brain works like that, to watch your face as it puts on that exquisite carnival of expression, to try and remain still when your mouth-"

He had to stop briefly to compose himself, to end the ramble before it got totally out of hand.

"I can assure you, Kate, trying is all that I can do and were it not for you and all of your, well, _you_, I'd beat the pants off of you at this thing and you know it."

She couldn't help but chuckle aloud at his arrogance which, as it turned out, didn't always irritate her. In fact, sometimes it was quite the opposite. "Well, I suppose it's unfortunate for you then, Castle, that I plan on being around with all of my _me _for the rest of our Sundays, huh?" She rose up onto her elbows, her lips nearly pressed against his ear. "Besides, I think I've made it quite clear how little I enjoy wearing pants when I'm around you anyway, Writer Man."

He kissed her hard and fast and then pulled back just as quickly, leaving her lips craving more. "Wait," she pleaded breathlessly, "what…where are you going?"

"Well, I thought that in the spirit of my unfinished crossword, I'd start with down," he stated matter-of-factly as he inched along her body. "Now, it is the Sunday puzzle so it could take me a while. But don't worry, there will be plenty of time for working across later."


End file.
